


Fear and Processing

by CookieDoughMe



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Nathan's perspective during some of the events of Fear And Loathing (2.02), Other, canon compliant so don't expect a happy ending, season two spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 07:56:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11031924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieDoughMe/pseuds/CookieDoughMe
Summary: Some of the events of Episode Two, Season Two - Fear And Loathing, from Nathan's perspective.





	Fear and Processing

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone needs a memory jog, this is the episode in which Nathan temporarily loses his Trouble and regains his sense of touch. He doesn't get much chance to appreciate that though, because they are also trying to track down Jackie Clark, whose Trouble means that anyone who looks at her sees their greatest fear, leading to panicked stampedes around town.  
> She loses her Trouble temporarily, but regains it when Ian Haskell (who had taken it from her) takes Nathan's instead. When Ian lies dying in front of them, Nathan takes blood from a cut on Jackie's arm and rubs it to Ian's skin, thereby curing Jackie of her Trouble for good, since Ian takes it with him when he dies.  
> Only thing is, Ian can only take one Trouble at a time, so in doing so, Nathan has taken his own Trouble back again.

His sense of touch came back gradually, and the first thing that intruded on his consciousness was pain.

“Ow.”

It wasn’t that big of a cut really, but when he pressed the napkin to it the sensation travelled through him like lightning. And it was over in a flash too, so that he wondered if he’d somehow imagined it. When he banged his fist on the bar, the sensation was less sharp, more localised; a dull thud of thunder to complement the lighting.

As he walked out to the bronco, he felt the wind on his face for the first time in years and he closed his eyes to it for a moment, soaking up the subtle pressures of air moving around his skin.

Driving was a challenge, or rather concentrating on it was, and he wondered if doing so was even sensible. But, they had a call to get to and he couldn’t really use ‘being normal’ as an excuse.

When he stopped at home to get changed, he reminded himself he didn’t have much time as he pulled his clothes over newly sensitive skin with a shudder. How long would it take him to adjust? It felt at the moment almost impossible to function like this, but of course people did. He had, once. He got dressed as quickly as he could, gasping only a little at the feel of fabric on his skin as he pulled on his shirt, and headed back out again.

At the scene, they found several scared and freaked-out people, but everything was calm for the time being. He spoke to one witness and then Duke was ranting at him, raving about the man with the tattoo he was convinced was going to kill him.

Nathan struggled to concentrate. It wasn’t an especially warm day, and it wasn’t particularly windy, but even so he could feel the movement of the air on his skin and he could feel the warmth of the sun on his face. It started out as an automatic gesture as he tried to pay attention to what Duke was saying, but when his hand found his jaw, he didn’t want to move it away.

And of course, Duke noticed, the little shit. Well, it would be nice to tell someone besides Parker, to celebrate a little. And since Duke had been there when his Trouble had kicked in, there was something oddly satisfying about telling him it was gone.

He didn’t quite expect the conversation to go the way it did though and he couldn’t quite decide if Duke was actually trying to be nice, or was simply making fun of him. His words apparently not being enough to stop Duke from making a crazy phone call, he reached out a hand instead to stop him and as he did, his fingers brushed the fabric of Duke’s sweater and the skin of his palm.

His point made, Nathan drew his hand back, oddly discombobulated by his fingers having found skin, though Duke didn’t seem to have even noticed. Given that skin (Audrey’s occasional, fleeting touch) was the only thing he’d felt in years, accidentally brushing his fingers against Duke’s palm probably shouldn’t have affected him as much as it did.

But somehow it was different when he could feel his own skin as well. Or perhaps it was just because it was Duke. Either way, it left him turned about enough that he caught his shoulder on the doorframe on the way back into the store. He rubbed at it, affronted, glad that Audrey (or, indeed, Audrey) hadn’t noticed and realising that a sense of touch could have its downsides as well.

But none of these things really dampened his mood. The world had been returned to him. For so long, he had operated at one step removed from everything and everyone, even from himself. Now, he was back; the world was back. And how could that not make him smile?

On his way back to the station, he finally had a few minutes to himself. He kept driving, though he turned up the heat and opened all the windows just to feel the rushing of the air and the contrasting temperatures swirling around him.

Back in his office he found himself staring at the vase of roses on his desk before he even realised why. He took a break from going over the files in front of him to pluck the nearest flower from the vase. He held the stem between his fingers; flowers were so fragile. A perfect construction of petals and scent for a few days and then just, gone. Such fleeting beauty.

He brought the fingers of his other hand to it, the tips of the petals brushing the tips of his fingers. For all that he had been through this before, and for all that he’d had a normal sense of touch for most of his life, it was a marvel to him now how wonderful it could be to feel something as everyday as a flower petal.

People talked about touch as a sexual thing, or maybe as ‘sensual’ if they were trying to be poetic, but it came down to the same thing he thought. But while touch could be sexual of course, it could also be many other things. The tiny sensations of the tips of the rose petals, so fine and fragile, was fascinating on both a subjective and objective level. That the human brain could process such fine distinctions was a marvel, and the experience of feeling it do so was one he had barely remembered he was missing.

He let the rose fall on the desk as Audrey came into the office and he tried to focus on the case and the sketch she was showing him. “Don’t recognise her,” he said and apparently no one else did either.

As they headed back out to the bronco again to follow up the lead that was Brian Shaw and his girlfriend, Nathan couldn’t help but bring the rose with him. As he drove, his hand fixed on the steering wheel, he brought the flower to his face instead, processing how different it felt on the skin of his lips. He was vaguely aware that Audrey was a little thrown by what he was doing, but not enough to make him stop. She was used to dealing with Troubled people, surely she could understand?

Then his attention was back on the job; gun drawn as he checked Jackie’s house and as they followed the screams to try and find her. When she turned to face him and he saw … it, he froze, unable to function though he knew it was only a mirage. He was hit not only by the awful image his eyes were showing him, but by the unconscious reactions of his body to go along with it; his heart was thudding against his ribs so hard he thought it might actually leave a dent, and he found himself literally weak at the knees. Barely able to speak, he waved Audrey away. She had to go after Jackie - she was the only one who could.

And of course she did; caught up to Jackie and talked her down. They were all back at the station when he learnt that this reprieve from his Trouble might not last. He tried to process that too, but it was difficult given that he didn’t know what was going to happen, or when it might do so.

As they examined the crime scene at the fisheries museum, the evidence seemed to confirm that someone had taken his Trouble from him for their own ends. Which inevitably led to the question - were they going to give it back?

The burglary was a mystery, but it wasn’t a huge concern in itself and with Jackie’s Trouble under some level of control, the situation didn’t feel too urgent by the time he was on his way home at the end of the day.

When he got inside, he didn't quite know what to do with himself. He stood in the living room for a while, before deciding to take a shower. He turned the heat up from its usual cold setting and stood under the spray for a long time, feeling the heat and the trace of every drop of water over his skin and through his hair.

He could feel his whole skin at once and finally he could do it without having to try and concentrate on something else at the same time, or to consider how he might look or sound to someone else. He closed his eyes and let out a satisfied moan that sounded almost sexual, although it wasn’t really. Despite Duke’s implication earlier, jerking himself off really wasn’t top of his to do list right now.

He breathed in the warm, steamy air, just to feel the stretch of his ribs. He rubbed shampoo into his hair and pressed his fingers hard against his scalp. Eventually, squeaky clean and with slightly shrivelled fingertips, he left the shower and got dressed.

Then he stood in the bedroom for a while, thinking. Loathe though he was to admit it, he kept coming back to the same thought; the Gull. He would be able to feel the fizz of a bottle of beer on his tongue and he could order the special he’d had last week, which he’d enjoyed at the time even as he’d known the contrasting textures of the different ingredients were part of the point of the recipe.

Something held him back though. Duke. Duke would be there and would no doubt find a way to make a big deal out of something he did. Or didn’t do. And while telling Duke his Trouble was gone had been kind of satisfying earlier, he wasn’t sure he wanted to give Duke the satisfaction of knowing how he was spending his first evening as a ‘real boy’ as Duke had put it once.

There were other restaurants in town, after all. OK, not many, but he did have other options and he’d heard good things about the new place that had opened up on the road out towards Bangor. He checked his phone, grabbed a book and drove over there.

It was only when Jackie hugged him Thank You the next day that he realised he’d missed a trick. His Trouble was back and the closest he’d got to any real human contact while it’d been gone was that fleeting brush of his fingers against Duke’s palm.

And now, the world had faded again, and he had faded from it; half a man, half a life.

He was Troubled again and there was nothing he could do about it. Just one day as a real man and nothing to show for it except a cut on his palm he could no longer feel and the memory of a meal he’d eaten alone.


End file.
